JaguarWong said:
The Joker here has a plan for chaos and if that sounds to you like a contradiction then you?d be absolutely correct and as a result of this and other similar factors the character never quite rounds out properly.
I agree with your observation, but to me it doesn't mean that he never rounds out properly. While the film overdid his explanation of who he is and why he does what he does, it effectively shows that the Joker works to upset conventional plans. He specifically said that he has no plans while he actually has some. To me this is a fault of the movie, but not of the character of the Joker. He works to destabilize the status quo, and makes careful, calculated plans to do so. He does plan, literally, but the way I interpret it is that he has no larger, ultimate expectations from life the way most people do. He does not try to control forces in the world which are out of his league, labeling such attempts as pathetic. I couldn't help but conclude that he's simply a social devil's advocate, who would probably be spreading flowers and chocolate around if the social norm was to be brutal and unforgiving. He merely seeks to provide the antithesis to accepted social protocols. In that sense, the character is not a contradiction. Whether his actions are premeditated or compulsory is incidental to his main purpose.
Furthermore, the movie makes it apparent that the Joker is more like a constant entity than a human being. The Joker is never injured, no matter what happens to his character. He never wears any armor, contrary to Batman who relies on his equipment to remain safe, and is more than once shown to be physically and mentally vulnerable. One is a human hero, and the other is the personification of adversity, who will relentlessly oppose whatever the norm is. That to me provides a better dichotomy than the personality schism in Tim Burton's movie.
This ceaseless alliteration of every nuance of every character and plot point is a massive part of what makes it so hard to enjoy The Dark Knight. Everything takes so much time to explain that the film never has a chance to gain any momentum. There is an ocean of difference between a slow film and a thoughtful one, sadly The Dark Knight falls resoundingly under the former heading.
After watching the movie for the third time, I have to agree. It does flow very slowly, and where I swallowed every detail on my first screening, I started noticing just how much subtlety this picture actually omits. Nolan has something to learn from P.T. Anderson.
Christopher Nolan can't direct action.
Eh, I don't know about that. I did find the early fighting scene a bit laborious, so there is credence to your statement in my opinion, but I enjoyed the Batmobile/cycle vs. Joker-truck sequence too much to say that Christopher Nolan can't direct action. He's shown me that he can, but that he needs to improve. I thought the last action scene in the sonar-imaged building very boring to watch, as I rarely understood what was going on. The sonar images didn't work very well in showing the audience the nuances and choreography of the action. In this case, Nolan should take a lesson from Zach Schnider.
...otherwise not-worth-mentioning Harvey Dent/Two Face character.
I actually thought that Aaron Eckhart was the second best thing in the movie, behind Ledger. He pulled off the slick and honorable routine extremely well, combining his character's love for Rachel Dawes effortlessly. He acted out broken man that is Two-Face much better than I would have expected, and as good as any great actor would. His work only improved as the movie went on, with the Joker turning Aaron's character on his head, affording him an opportunity to express a mixture of anger and pain that I've never seen him portray before. Two-Face served as a human metaphor to what the Joker wanted for society, and has so gone through the most disabling change- losing what he loved the most. It turned him into a fallen knight, and I can't wait to see what he'll do in the next sequel.
